by Gia Riley
He bends down, picks me up, and kisses the top of my head. “Everything’s fine. Let’s get you out of the closet.”
His boots crunch the glass into smaller bits, and he checks the bed before setting me on it.
“Do you have a vacuum? I can clean this up.”
“You’re shaking. You’re not cleaning anything. I’ll get it.”
“Who was it?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter,” I tell him. “You have broken windows. Whoever did this could come back, and you can’t call the cops. They probably know that.”
Trey pauses, like he wants to tell me the truth, but changes his mind. I tell myself that, someday, he won’t keep so much of his life a secret. Someday, he’ll see me as his equal and not someone who needs constant protection.
“He won’t be back.”
“He? How can you be sure it wasn’t that girl?”
That makes him laugh. “I promise you, it wasn’t her.”
“Don’t laugh at me. You have so many people out to get you. Every day, you’re surrounded by bad guys. All it would take is one wrong move, Trey. And then…” I trail off, unable to finish the sentence.
I’m so worried about him, but I can tell Trey’s not thinking about himself right now. He’s imagining me on the ground with the gunshot wound. I know because he’s staring at my body in the exact spot the bullet hit.
The warmth I felt as he told me he loved me is replaced by ice.
A different Trey stares back at me. “This is why I tried to push you away. I don’t want this life for you.”
“Don’t you get it? This isn’t your choice or mine. This just happened. We were meant to happen. And I’ll always choose you, no matter who breaks your windows or tries to get you naked by buying some pills.”
“That’s not what she was doing, Winn.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But she wasn’t here to ask about the weather.”
Five minutes ago, we were a new couple excited about where things were headed. Trey let me in. Now, we’re back to second-guessing everything. That’s how it is with him. One step forward. Two steps back. There’s always an obstacle, always something that gets wedged between us, making life impossible.
“I need you to go home, Winn.”
He doesn’t mean it. I know he doesn’t. We didn’t even get to spend any time together.
“Because I said she was here for you? You’ll just send me away if I tell you how I feel?”
“No. But I don’t want to fight, and I have a mess to clean up. The last thing I want is you getting hurt.”
“I already am,” I grumble.
“What was that?” he asks.
“Nothing. I have to go.”
Trey runs his hands over his face, and I wait for him to get up, but he doesn’t budge.
“This isn’t how I want it, Winn. I want to take you to the city and keep you there until we can get away. But we have to be patient. If you leave now, you’ll get to Sunshine Place by the time the bus drops off. Your foster parents won’t know the difference.”
“They’re not my parents. They just own the home. Why can’t you drive me like you did yesterday?” I’d get there too soon, but at least I’d have a few extra minutes with my arms wrapped around Trey.
“I can’t this time,” he says. “I have a few things to take care of.”
Trey’s rejection stings even if he is trying to do the right thing. I get it; he wants to keep me safe. He’s always felt the less I knew about his job, the better. That way, if I’m ever questioned, I won’t feel compelled to lie for him.
But I’m not a kid anymore.
If I’m old enough to kiss Trey, then I’m old enough to hear the truth.
I can handle his world.
He follows me to the front door, and I dodge more glass along the way. The place is trashed.
“I’m sorry this happened.”
“Don’t apologize,” he tells me.
My step forward gets matched. He doesn’t deny me when I stand on my tiptoes and press my lips against his, finally getting the kiss I’ve been waiting all day for.
“I love you,” I whisper against his mouth.
I’ve never said those words before. But I don’t regret letting them slip out.
He squeezes my waist and tucks a finger in my pocket. “This isn’t how it should be, Winn. You hate this trailer park, and I keep bringing you here. We should be someplace better.”
I don’t care about why we have to come here or why we hide. It’s not a factor in my feelings for Trey. We’ll do what we have to until it’s safe. Those are the rules.
“Just say it,” I tell him. “If you feel it, say it. I don’t care where we are.”
Trey grabs my face with both hands and studies me. I’m not his project, not some fragile girl who needs the world served to her on a silver platter. I know better than anyone that a perfect world doesn’t exist. I’m happy with rough edges and jagged paths.
Right here, right now, Trey and I are as real as we’re ever going to get. I’ve battled demons. I’ve dangled from the side of a cliff and almost jumped. But those demons disappear when I’m with Trey. He’s the goodness of the future, wrapped up in my forever.
“I love you, Winnie Dawes.”
“Winn,” I whisper. “You call me Winn.”
He’s the only one who does. And, every time my name comes out of his mouth, I hang on to that one syllable harder than I’ve ever held on to anything else.
Until now.
Now, I can add three little words I’ve waited a lifetime to hear.
I love you.
“Right,” he says with his signature smile. “I love you, Winn.”
“Say it again.”
I pinch my arm when he says it one more time. This is real. I’m not dreaming. Trey loves me. Nobody’s ever loved me like Trey does. And nobody ever will.
Twenty-Two
Winnie
I bound down the stairs, feeling like I didn’t sleep at all. I must have repeated Trey’s words a hundred times in my head. Each time I love you came out, it felt better than the time before. I’ve never felt closer to Trey, and even though we can’t show each other exactly how we feel yet, I know that, with time, we’ll get there. We’ll take the next step and every step after that—together.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” he always tells me.
But how can I not? We’re so close. In a couple of weeks, I’ll have a birthday—the birthday.
After I turn eighteen, I haven’t decided if I’ll stay at Sunshine Place until I graduate or if I’ll move in with Trey. Chances are, he won’t want me to move until I have a diploma, and we’re free to go wherever we want. Besides, I’m smart enough to realize that, after the chaos at the trailer last night, staying with Doug and Cindy is safer than the trailer park.
“Winnie, aren’t you having breakfast?” Cindy yells from the living room when she catches me running toward the foyer.
“Not hungry. See you later,” I yell over my shoulder.
I couldn’t eat if I tried. With all the nervous energy in my system, a long walk is the only thing that’ll calm me down before school. Because, once I get there, I’ll be forced to sit still for hours, pretending like I care about what happens between the hours of eight and three. I should care, but my real life exists once the final bell rings, and I’m free again. Well, as free as Sunshine Place lets me be.
But, when I walk through the lobby doors, like I do every day of the week, I’m reminded of how much I hate school. A hundred pairs of eyes examine me like a specimen under a microscope in the chem lab.
Their looks aren’t full of pity or curiosity, like after I got shot. This time, they’re assigning me a new title, a sentence to add to the list of infractions I keep getting judged for. I’m not sure how I earned my new status, but I thought the worst was over.
The more Dray spoke to me in class, the easier it was to blend in. Most days, I didn’t even have
to try to keep my head down. Nobody cared what I did anymore, and I thought that, with a little more time, I could fit in, maybe even consider myself to be off the daily drama radar.
Today is proof of how wrong I was to let my guard down. The comfort I got used to disappears, and I’m back to being a freak. Whispers turn into pointing, and then laughter erupts when my bottom lip quivers. Crying only makes their hate worse, so I bite my lip and press down with my teeth. If I make it hurt enough, I’ll think about cutting instead of breaking down into tears.
Each step I take, not one person looks away. Nobody takes a step forward to disagree with the crowd. They just stand as a unit and gawk at me. It gets so bad, I bypass my locker and walk into first period without so much as a piece of notebook paper. All I have in my book bag are two books for my classes after lunch and a pack of gum.
Someone left a condom, still in the wrapper, on my chair, and I kick it onto the floor before I sit down. Dray files down the row after me and steps over it, barely blinking. Any other day, that would have gotten a rousing reaction out of him, but today, he’s silent. He doesn’t make eye contact, and when I turn around to talk to him, he still won’t look at me.
“Are you mad I didn’t ride the bus?” I ask him.
“No,” he says.
He’s suddenly too focused on digging around in his bag, and he’s probably hoping I take the hint and leave him alone. I’d expect that coldness from any other person in the room but not Dray. He’s good to me. We live under the same roof and got called into the office for sex we didn’t have, and this is the best he can do when I really need him.
“What’s going on, Dray?”
“I don’t know.”
The lie hurts more than a punch to the face ever could. I wish he had hit me. At least then, I’d have a place to direct the pain. Because, right now, my heart’s almost filled to the brim with agony.
Dray knows everything that goes on in this school, no matter what grade or wing of the building the drama unfolds. He’s well aware that my partially rebuilt reputation was shattered this morning. And, apparently, he doesn’t care.
My chest tightens as the morning announcements filter through the loudspeaker. The chatter around me dies down, but the stares continue to tear my soul wide open. It’s like everyone can see inside me, and all my deepest, darkest secrets are pouring out of my body. My thigh wants to bleed from the exposure.
What did I do?
A note falls out of thin air and onto my desk. I’m too afraid to turn around to see who threw it, but I pick it up, and with shaky hands, I unfold the paper.
Slut is written in purple ink.
Dray must read it over my shoulder because I hear him exhale, and then my desk shakes. His knee is bouncing like it always does when he’s too full of nervous energy. When I found him on his bed the night he was upset, his foot was doing the same thing as it dangled off the end of the bed. Dray’s wound up.
Just as I crumple up the paper, another note lands on the desk. I shouldn’t read it, but I can’t help myself. If they’re going to talk, I need the full story. I need their words to burn so that, when I lock myself in the bathroom later, I’ll remember them with each cut, chasing them from my mind with each drop of blood.
Whore.
Easy.
Tramp.
Paper after paper, I read the words they believe that I am.
Finally, the shaking behind me stops, and Dray’s still.
“Enough!” he yells. “No more.”
The teacher looks up from his desk, but Dray’s as much of a king in class as he is around campus. Mr. Jones doesn’t say a word about his outburst because all of our teachers love him, too.
My red face goes unnoticed by Mr. Jones, and that only makes the heat spread across my cheeks faster. Nobody cares about Winnie Dawes. Not even Dray, who decided to stick up for me about an hour too late.
I don’t wait for another insult to take flight and land on my desk. My body goes through its own battle between staying and going, and then, like always, running wins. It’s the only defense mechanism that ever survives besides the cutting. Since I can’t do that here, I grab my bag, toss it over my shoulder, and disappear like they want me to.
Muffled snickers and a couple of whistles follow me into the hallway. Eventually, the silence feeds some air back into my lungs, and I take the deepest breath I can, just in case another one doesn’t follow.
“Winnie, wait!”
Any other day, Dray’s voice would comfort me. He’d stop me from running, and he’d talk me into going back to class with just a smile or a joke. But he’s not my friend anymore. Like all the other hopes and dreams in my life, I have to let him go.
Out of a graduating class of approximately three hundred students, two people were on my side. The odds of having a good day really weren’t in my favor, yet I was having them. For once in my life, I didn’t completely dread waking up for school.
As a senior, I ate my first meal in the cafeteria instead of locked inside a graffiti-filled restroom stall or on a bench in a locker room, surrounded by smelly gym uniforms. Dray gave that to me. The good grace of one popular kid was all it took to end the loneliness of a school day.
But Dray’s gone. He’s back to being Alex, and he’s teamed up with the two hundred ninety-eight other students who either treat me like shit or don’t care that their stares and whispers hurt.
“Winnie, stop!” he yells again.
Outside of the classroom, I don’t have to listen to anybody. His word isn’t golden anymore, but he still catches me before I make it outside.
Tugging on my arm, he forces me to a stop. “You can’t leave school, Winnie.”
“Watch me,” I tell him. “Don’t act like you care, Dray. I’m not going back in there, and nothing you say will change my mind.”
“You have to go back. Just stay in the building. Don’t be stupid and walk out the door. You never cared what anyone said about you before.”
That’s how good of an actress I must be. So good, I never realized I was even acting. If Dray was paying attention, he’d have seen just how much I cared, how every word spoken against me ate me alive. My self-worth was stripped away until I was bare. Day after day, I walked around these halls, naked. No confidence. Zero dignity. And a whole lot of shame.
“You think this is me being stupid? The pieces of paper spelled it out. Mr. Jones has enough paper in that classroom to keep the notes flowing for hours, probably days. Was I supposed to sit there and take it? Keep reading until they ran out of colorful words to label me with?”
“I told them to stop, Winnie.”
“Oh, so you finally spoke up, and all is right with the world again. I’m just supposed to forget about how they treated me because you told them to knock it off?”
“No.”
“Exactly. I could get into trouble for this. I’m underage. All they have to do is connect a few dots, and my world blows up.”
His usual tan skin becomes eerily pale. I’m the one being crucified, yet he’s the one who looks like he’s about to pass out. Then, it all makes sense.
“It was you. I can’t believe you told them.”
“Winnie, I swear on my life, I didn’t say a word. I’d never get you in trouble. We’re both under a microscope in the foster system.”
I don’t believe him. Not even for a second. It’s too much of a coincidence. I asked Dray to cover for me and filled him in on a little bit about my life, and then he showed me his true colors by turning the whole school against me.
“I guess you had the right idea, Dray. Find someone with bigger problems, so it’s easier to keep your own life a secret. Because, if they’re occupied with me, they’ll leave you alone.”
“You have it all wrong,” he says. His tone is sincere, yet it doesn’t mean a thing.
There might have been a time when Dray was on my side, but Alex, he’s always been like everyone else. I’ve finally reached the point I can see it for myself, and i
f I don’t get away from this school and all these fake people, I’ll completely crack. This time, I won’t have it in me to put the pieces back together. I’m done trying.
“Why didn’t you try to stop them then?”
“I’ll go back in there right now and stop Mr. Jones in the middle of his boring-ass lecture. I’ll tell them all to apologize.”
“That would only make it worse.”
Too little, too late.
“What happened to Jasper?” Dray asks as he looks over my shoulder.
I turn around and see Jasper’s black eye and his arm that’s in a sling. My heart sinks to the floor as he walks toward me.
“What happened, Jasper?”
He glances at Dray, and the second they make eye contact, Jasper shrinks a couple of inches. His posture changes, and his shoulders slump even further. I don’t know why, but Dray gives him a look so evil, Jasper keeps moving, entirely ignoring me.
I try to follow him, but Dray grabs my arm and says, “Stay away from him, Winnie.”
“He’s my best friend. And he’s hurt.”
Dray pulls me into the boys’ restroom. “There’s something I need to tell you,” he says.
“Say it fast because I need to find Jasper.”
Once he knows I’m not going to run, Dray lets go of me, and his eyes become so intense, I take a step backward. Putting an extra couple of inches in between us might lessen the impact his words are about to have. Or so I hope because nothing could ever prepare me for what comes out of his mouth next.
“I wasn’t sure until just now, but I think Jasper’s responsible for the rumor about you. Someone sent out a mass text last night, and it spread like wildfire around the senior class. Some of the juniors even got it. I wanted to tell you last night when I got it, but I didn’t know how. You were in such a good mood at dinner. I didn’t want to ruin it.”
Correction, two hundred ninety-nine students hate my guts.
With only one person left on my side, I look at him and say, “Show me the text.”
Dray hesitates. He closes his eyes, and then he digs into his front pocket and pulls out his cell phone. A quick swipe across the screen and then a passcode later, and Jasper’s text seeps into my brain.